There’s Gold in Them Thar Facebook Apps
You knew the Facebook application landscape is red-hot when nearly 500 people gathered for a Facebook Camp recently in Toronto as everyone looks for insight into how to leverage the social network’s explosive growth.
More evidence of Facebook Fever is TripAdvisor’s $3-million reported purchase of Where I’ve Been - the largest acquisition (so far!) of a Facebook application. Where I’ve Been is the biggest travel application with 2.3-million users while TripAdvisor’s Cities I’ve Visited is second with one million.
The deal makes several statements: lots of people are not only using Facebook but enthusiastically embracing applications as well; travel is clearly a sweet-spot, which is not surprising given Facebook’s demographic, which is leaving is college roots behind; and the more popular applications are being seen as valuable must-have tools by suitors.
The question now is whether TripAdvisor’s acquisition is just the tip of the investment iceberg. For the most part, investors move in pack so this deal could be a sign that we’re in for a flurry of deals, and/or we can expect more venture capitalists to be scrambling to get into some of the more popular or interesting Facebook applications.
More: Squash suggests the $1.30/per Where I’ve Been price that TripAdvisor paid is not unreasonable if TripAdvisor can convert a healthy number of these people into becoming TripAdvisor users.
